Rome closes the door: the criminal law of 1976

The decree-law of 4 March 1976

The period ends with a change in Italian law. In the lira crisis of early 1976, with the foreign exchange market suspended and the Communist Party approaching the Christian Democrats in the polls, the government of Aldo Moro adopted the decreelaw of 4 March 1976, no. 31, containing criminal provisions on currency offences. Parliament converted it with amendments by the law of 30 April 1976, no. 159.¹ For the first time since the fall of fascism, the illegal export of capital became a crime in Italy. Art. 1 of the decree punished the export abroad, without the required authorization, of national or foreign currency, shares and bonds, and the creation outside the territory of the State, for oneself or for others, of foreign currency holdings or other assets.² For large amounts the penalty was imprisonment of one to six years together with a fine of up to four times the value concerned, while small violations remained subject to fines.³

The law was amended twice in the same year. The decree-law of 10 August 1976, no. 543, converted by the law of 8 October 1976, no. 689, introduced the offence of concealing Italian assets as the property of non-residents through foreign entities, discussed above, and regulated the fate of assets that residents already held abroad.⁴ The decree-law of 19 November 1976, no. 759, converted by the law of 23 December 1976, no. 863, recast the offence of exporting currency with a graduated scale: administrative sanctions where the value did not exceed 500,000 lire, a fine of half to three times the value up to five million lire, and above that imprisonment of one to six years with a fine of two to four times the value.⁵ The thresholds were later changed several times. A law of 1981 converted minor violations into administrative offences, after which the law no. 599 of 1986 raised the threshold of criminal liability to 100 million lire over a period of three years.⁶

Declare, repatriate or face prosecution

The law of October 1976 combined the new criminal offence with a regularization. Residents who held assets abroad that had been created before 6 March 1976 in violation of the exchange-control rules had to declare them to the Ufficio Italiano dei Cambi by 19 November 1976. Liquid assets had to be repatriated by 19 February 1977 and foreign securities deposited in Italy by the same date. Other movable assets had to be liquidated by 19 May 1977 and non-direct investments sold by 19 November 1977. A resident who complied escaped the administrative sanctions. One who did not faced a fine of up to 500,000 lire or, where the value exceeded fifteen million lire, imprisonment of one to six years and a fine of up to four times the value.⁷ The structure anticipated the later Italian amnesties, the scudi fiscali of 2001 to 2009 and the voluntary disclosure of 2014, which offered a regularization against payment and threatened prosecution for those who remained outside (Chapter E.II).

Contemporary assessments of the regularization's effect are not available in the sources consulted for this chapter. The general view of later writers is that only a small part of the Italian assets in Switzerland was declared, because owners who had taken the risk of exporting their capital had little confidence in a State whose political future seemed uncertain.⁸ The criminal law did, however, change the courier business. A courier caught at Ponte Chiasso with a large sum now faced imprisonment, and so did the owner of the money if he could be identified. The likely consequence was a courier trade that became more professional, more expensive and more discreet, with part of the traffic moving from banknotes to compensation and invoicing schemes that did not require a physical crossing.

Notes

1. Decree-law of 4 March 1976, no. 31, converted with amendments by Law of 30 April 1976, no. 159, as described in Corte costituzionale, judgment no. 236 of 1984 (as above) and in the text of Law no. 689 of 1976 (as above). The judgment gives the title of the decree as "Disposizioni penali in materia di infrazioni valutarie" and that of Law no. 159 as "Conversione in legge, con modificazioni, del decreto-legge 4 marzo 1976, n. 31". ↩
2. Corte costituzionale, judgment no. 236 of 13 July 1984 (as above) ("L'esportazione all'estero, senza la prescritta autorizzazione, di valuta nazionale o estera, titoli azionari e obbligazioni"; "chiunque costituisce fuori del territorio dello Stato, a favore proprio o di altri, disponibilità valutarie o attività"). ↩
3. Corte costituzionale, judgment no. 236 of 1984 (as above) ("con la reclusione da uno a sei anni e con la multa fino al quadruplo del predetto valore"; "multa fino a lire 500 mila"). Corte costituzionale, ordinance no. 124 of 1987 (as above), refers to an original threshold of five million lire in a calendar year. ↩
4. Law of 8 October 1976, no. 689 (as above), Arts. 1 and 2. ↩
5. Law of 23 December 1976, no. 863, converting Decree-law of 19 November 1976, no. 759, text at https://www.edizionieuropee.it/law/html/2/zn15_07_00h.html. ↩
6. Corte costituzionale, ordinance no. 124 of 1987 (as above) (Law no. 689 of 1981; Law no. 599 of 1986: "100 milioni, complessivamente nel corso di un triennio"). ↩
7. Law of 8 October 1976, no. 689 (as above), Art. 2. ↩
8. On the limits of the 1976 regularization see Segreto (as above) and Kuder (as above), whose studies end in 1970/1971. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of October 2026.